The X-Men, as well as the young adults training to join the team who fondly referred to themselves as Junior X-Men, were in Professor Xavier's office. It had been three years since the events at the Statue of Liberty, and anti-mutant sentiment hadn't decreased much. So Xavier had taken to actively recruiting mutants to come to the school, knowing most of them would be safer at the school than wherever else they happened to be.

Pick up missions weren't considered that dangerous, so he always paired an X-Man with one or two of the trainees. Jean, Jubilee and Bobby, as well as Ororo, St. John and Kitty had been given assignments already.

"Scott, I'd like you and Rogue to pick up the young woman who emits ultra-high frequencies every time she tries to talk," Xavier said. "I think she will connect best with two people who have handicaps due to their powers as well, so to speak."

"Location?" Scott asked, nodding his agreement with Xavier's assessment.

"It's a small town in California…"

Scott's head shot up from taking notes on the notebook in his lap. "I can't go on a two day trip, Professor."

Xavier's eyebrows rose, but Jean explained for Scott.

"We're having our anniversary dinner tomorrow night, Professor."

"Very well. Logan, would you go with Rogue please?"

Logan sighed but answered, "Sure, Chuck."

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"We met with the girl and her parents," Logan reported into the communicator. "They said to send their thanks, but they're moving to Australia next month so they can stay together. The kid and I are checked into the hotel rooms you provided us, and we'll be heading home in the morning."

"Very well, Logan, we'll expect the two of you back tomorrow evening," Professor Xavier said by way of farewell.

Logan turned off the communicator and turned to look at the woman lying on the king sized bed in his hotel room. She stretched luxuriously and smiled at him. He couldn't help but smile back. She was so beautiful, and she was all his.

"Didn't feel the need to tell Xavier we'd only be using the one room, huh, sugah?" Rogue asked him.

Logan sat down on the edge of the bed and grinned when Rogue got up and moved to straddle his lap. His hands automatically traveled to her hips and began massaging the soft flesh that was accessible between her jeans and the bottom of her shirt. His lover's slender but strong fingers wove themselves into the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him closer so Rogue could kiss him.

She had been dropping hints like that for a few weeks now, about two thirds into their four-month relationship. Logan was never happier than when he was with Rogue, whether it was training together or even just sitting and doing nothing; it had always been that way between them. When they had actually moved to this new level, he had been ecstatic. But he was still nervous about how the others would react when they found out he and Rogue were a couple.

He'd personally get over it quickly if any of them disapproved, but he wasn't sure how well Rogue would take it. She had been particularly eager to please ever since her disastrous encounter with Carol Danvers six months ago. The events that had led to Carol being in a coma and Rogue permanently gaining Carol's powers and control over her own mutation had been a horrible accident, but because Rogue had benefited from it she still felt guilty sometimes. It was a habit Logan was trying to break her of, and he was sure it would be better for her if she was secure in her own self-worth before the others passed judgment on their relationship.

Logan was surprised Xavier and Jean didn't at least know, being telepaths, but they did both tout not going into anyone's mind without permission. Maybe they truly didn't snoop as he had always secretly thought they did. Either that or they did know and just didn't care.

As for the other residents of the school, everyone knew Rogue and the Wolverine had been inseparable since they had first been brought to the school together. The pair had never been intimate on school grounds, more out of a desire for privacy than anything else… neither one of them was very quiet during their lovemaking… so there was really no reason for anyone to suspect anything had changed. Not yet anyway… but it would have to come out in the not-too-distant future.

Rogue noticed his distraction and lightly bit down on his lip. He growled softly and nipped her lips in return, earning a throaty chuckle from his mate. And that's what she was to him. His mate, his life, his everything.

"Back with me?" she asked in a slightly huskier voice than normal.

Logan growled again, knowing it gave Rogue a thrill to hear the sound and feel the vibration through his chest, her own pressed tightly enough to him to feel it through her entire body.

Rogue made a soft sound of need and undulated her hips, moving against him in a way that made his breath catch in his throat and his fingers dig into her hips. But because he could see a wall coming up in her expressive dark eyes that hadn't been there other times he had brushed aside her hints, he had to make sure she at least partially understood his reasons for keeping their love private before he was completely distracted.

"I don't want them to make you feel like our love is wrong, Marie. There's a very good chance that at least some of them won't approve."

She stilled and met his gaze, a softness in her eyes he never got tired of seeing. "I love you, Logan. The biggest miracle of my life is you loving me back. No one could ever make me see what we have together as wrong. Not even if the whole world was against us."

A possessive growl rumbled from his throat and he buried his face in her neck, making sure she heard him when he said, "I love you so much, darlin'."

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It was a shock to Rogue to wake so drowsy. No matter what she and Logan had done the night before, as long as she had a couple hours of sleep, she always woke refreshed, part of Carol's invulnerability, she supposed. But now, not only was she groggy, but she was also alone and not in the bed she had fallen asleep in. And there were way too many lights on.

Rogue tried to sit up and discovered that she was restrained against the narrow, thin mattress she was laying on. In a panic, she tried to break free. None of her struggles worked. Carol's abilities had chosen a really bad time to disappear. Deciding to save what little strength she did have left until a more opportune time, Rogue relaxed her body. She glanced around the room as much as she could, trying to figure out if Logan was here somewhere as well.

But thinking of her love raised even more questions. How had whoever had taken her managed to capture even just her without waking she or Logan? They should have died slowly and painfully on the end of Logan's claws for even trying.

A door opened somewhere behind her and Rogue froze. She wasn't sure if it was better to pretend to be asleep or go ahead and let her captors know she was awake. As the men… there were at least two of them… drew closer, she could hear them congratulating themselves.

"Yes, even though it did take a lot of man hours, it's a good thing we had someone watching them all the time. Much easier to pick them up this way then from the mansion. And bringing Sandy in to keep them unconscious during the capture was perfect. There's no way we would have gotten both of them otherwise," the first said.

The second agreed, "I don't think we would have even been able to take one of them without using Sandy. Rogue is physically stronger than even the Wolverine since her run in with the former Miss Marvel. And we didn't want them damaged. And with their current… relationship, they both would have fought to the death to stay out of our clutches."

"That was an interesting turn of events," the first man mused. "The tests will show if we are already a step ahead of where we thought we'd be."

Though she was confused by what the two men could possibly mean, Rogue took stock of herself, just then noticing that there was a slight pain on the inner side of her arm just inches below the bend of her elbow. There was also a faint pressure on the area, and when Rogue glanced down her body, she saw that a piece of medical tape with a wad of cotton under it had been attached to her skin. They had taken her blood.

A steady beeping she hadn't really noticed until then increased it's speed and she realized she was also hooked up to monitors. Rogue tried to calm her heartbeat, but she was scared and confused and her body was already dealing with the stress the best it could.

"Ah, you're awake," the first of the two men noted, jotting something down on a clipboard after glancing at the monitors. "I'm Dr. Samuels, this is Dr. Jackson."

"What do you want with me?" Rogue asked, narrowing her eyes at Samuels.

He ignored her question. "As long as you don't fight us we won't hurt you. Should you choose to be uncooperative, we will take it out on first you and then on the Wolverine. We need to keep you relatively unharmed, so we have to rely on your feelings for the Wolverine to keep you in line. You don't want us to give him daily torture sessions, now do you?"

Rogue swallowed a lump of fear at the coldness in his eyes. She shook her head in answer to his questions.

"That's a good girl," Samuels said condescendingly.

Just then a phone on the wall near the door rang. Jackson picked it up and listened without greeting the person on the other end. With an excited “thank you” into the receiver, he hung the phone up and moved quickly to Samuels' side.

"It's as we hoped; we're ahead of schedule," Jackson told his cohort. "Three months from the tests."

A pleased smile briefly crossed Samuels' face before he glanced at her, lifting his clipboard and pen again. "Have you been to a doctor yet?"

"For what?" Rogue asked.

A sick feeling crept up her spine that maybe she already knew what he meant. It would explain why he was less inclined to hurt her than the average scientist-with-a-mutant-in-his-lab.

He struck her across the face with the back of his clipboard and snarled, "What did I tell you about being uncooperative…"

"I don't think she knew," Jackson cut in, a calming hand landing on his colleague's arm. To Rogue he said, "For the baby."

Rogue closed her eyes, a tear sliding down her aching cheek. Taking the two scientist's conversation and adding it to what she now knew, she was forced to acknowledge that the two scientists were what rumors had labeled ‘breeders.' It had been floating around the mutant underground for about a year that some of the labs weren't death camps or mind control experiments. Men trying to breed so-called super mutants, mostly from two Alpha class mutant parents, ran some of them.

And apparently they thought her child, her son or daughter with Logan, was going to be one of these super mutants. A time that should have been filled with shared joy and happiness and plans for the future had become a nightmare. She would almost rather be in a death camp than know that her child was going to be raised to do the bidding of these kidnappers. How was she going to tell Logan?

"No crying," Jackson told her in a not unkind way. It was almost creepier than the malice Samuels had shown her. "It's bad for the baby."

With effort Rogue stifled her sobs and lay still as the two scientists poked and prodded her, running tests she didn't understand and drawing more blood. It wasn't time yet to fight with everything she could. She had to find out more about them and the place they were holding her. She could only wait and hope that the control collar around her neck, placed there to protect the scientists from the threat of her turning on her skin, she was sure, would not be a matching set with a second one around Logan's neck. Rogue distracted herself with thoughts of Logan waiting to find out where in the building she was before breaking them both out. Then she remembered what the scientists had said about her strength. They knew everything about she and Logan, evidently. And that meant the chances that they had allowed Logan to go without one of the collars was nonexistent.

Would the X-Men find them? Rogue thought the chances of that were pretty slim. Logan was hard for the Professor to get a fix on with Cerebro because of the adamantium coating his skull, and Rogue was just as difficult to psychically track because of all the personalities in her head.

What felt like hours later, she was finally un-strapped from the examination table and led by two armed guards down a hallway, her arms painfully restrained behind her so that she couldn't even try good old-fashioned fisticuffs. The guards jerked her to a stop in front of a nondescript, unmarked door. One of them undid the cuffs while the other unlocked the door. The one that had unlocked her restraints pointed his rifle at her head.

"Approach the inner door. It will be automatically opened and then closed behind you. Follow all instructions and things will go easier for you."

Rogue walked slowly to the second door, shaking slightly as she did so. This door was heavy, thick and evidently remotely controlled. Even if she did have her super strength, it would take quite an effort to get through this door. The room past the door was dimly lit and it took Rogue a few minutes to adjust after the brightness of the lab and the hallway. An automated voice announced that the door would be electrified in ten seconds, and a hand grabbed her wrist and tugged her away from the offending barrier.

Rogue almost screamed in fear before she realized Logan was the one who had pulled her against him. Collapsing against his chest, Rogue allowed herself a good cry. Logan didn't say anything, simply holding her and letting her get it all out. When her sobs died down, he apologized quietly and repeatedly for getting them into this.

"You weren't the only one they wanted this time, Logan," she corrected him.

"I know," he conceded before she could tell him about the child growing within her. "Damn breeders."

One of the things the two doctors had examined had been her child's heartbeat, which had been so fast and loud through their instrument that Rogue had at first thought something was wrong. Only Samuels' cold smile and written check mark after listening to the sound had informed her that it was supposed to be that way.

It had, however, made her wonder how Logan could have possibly not heard it at some point. He had a habit of laying his head in her lap when they were alone and relaxing. A sudden thought struck her.

"You already knew about the baby," she gasped. "How long?"

"Little over a month," he answered gruffly, one big hand traveling down to rest over her abdomen. "At first I thought it was just wishful thinking, but after a couple weeks it was obvious that I was right."

Rogue blinked up at him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Instead of answering right away, Logan scooped her up in his arms. He carried her a few paces away from where they had been standing to a cot with a thin mattress and a single blanket. Logan laid her down on it before joining her, wrapping his arms around hers and draping one leg over both of hers, shielding her body with his.

"As I understand it women like to find this out for themselves and then surprise their husbands with the news," he murmured, letting go with one arm for a moment to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear reverently. "I didn't want to take that away from you."

Rogue didn't point out that they weren't married. She was the Wolverine's mate and she knew it. That meant more to Logan than any legal ceremony ever could. And the fact that she didn't go by her true identity and he didn't even know what his was would more than likely make it difficult to even have one. For a minute Rogue was able to push aside where they were and what they were going through.

"Guess what?" she whispered softly.

Logan's mouth twitched, but he played along with her, "What, darlin'?"

Rogue captured his hand and held it against her belly. "We're going to have a baby."

The fingers of Logan's free hand dove into her hair and tugged her mouth to his.

"I love you so much, Marie," he whispered.

She burrowed her face into his neck, barely whispering her response, knowing he would hear her, "Love you, too."

They simply held each other for long minutes until Rogue realized that they had to face their situation if they were going to find a way out of it.

"What are we going to do?" she asked in a small voice. "We can't let them have our baby."

"Either Scooter and the others will find us and get us out, or we'll find a way out ourselves," Logan answered, keeping his voice low. "We have to keep our eyes and ears open at all times. Any little thing could be the key to gettin' outta here. And darlin', if you can get out on your own…"

"No, Logan," Rogue interrupted firmly. "Forget for a second that I love you and wouldn't be able to carry on without you in my life. This baby is going to need both of us. We won't leave without you."

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During their first full week of captivity, Rogue learned that Samuels and Jackson were perfectly serious about punishing her if she disobeyed them. When she put up resistance against a more thorough gynecological exam, they returned her to her room. Logan was not in it. She didn't see him for four days, and when Samuels told her to strip before climbing onto the stirrup-ed exam table on the fourth day, she did as she was told.

That night, Logan was returned to her, bruised and bloodied. Neither control collar had ever been turned off, and it broke Rogue's heart to see how much Logan resented having to let her help him with the wounds that wouldn't be healing automatically.

She was told the next day by Jackson that they only allowed her to stay in the same cell with Logan because it put less stress on her and therefore on the baby. But if they were displeased with her, they would separate them again, for longer, and take the risk. Livid at the way they had been treated, Logan struck out at the guards the next time they came for her, before Rogue had a chance to warn him about the consequences.

With his almost-instantaneous healing kept suppressed by the control collar, the tendons, muscles and nerves in his hands and arms were severed when he popped his claws, making Logan relatively useless from elbows to fingertips. He only managed to separate one guard from his left arm before the others were able to get Logan under control, pinning him to the floor and restraining his arms and legs with plastic ties used by riot police in place of handcuffs.

The mutilated guard screamed in agony for several minutes until Jackson showed up with another mutant. Logan and Rogue watched in shock as the mutant, not restrained or provoked in anyway, reattached the man's arm with a few passes of his hands.

"This is Tissue," Jackson told them when the now unconscious but once more whole guard had been taken away. "If you retract your claws, he will heal the damage you did to yourself with that foolish display."

Tears sprang to Rogue's eyes as the other mutant worked on a silent Logan.

"Please," she quietly begged Jackson. "He didn't know what would happen if he tried anything. It's in his nature to try to escape."

Jackson looked down at her over the rims of his reading glasses. "Just one day apart then, to remind you both that we are serious. If you're obedient for forty-eight hours after that, we'll let you have some light exercise in the yard. It'll be good for the child, but we have other ways if you fight us."

Rogue nodded and forced herself to remain quiet as they dragged Logan out of the cell. When Logan was once more returned to her the next day, he was quieter, more subdued. He didn't try anything after that. Two days after they had been reunited, they were allowed out into a sun-filled patch of grass enclosed in two rows of fence, razor wire at the bottom and top of each fence and guards with wicked looking guns stationed every five feet along the perimeter. Rogue was surprised to find two other people moving slowly around the interior of the yard.

Tissue approached them, a woman with purple hair keeping to her own corner of the yard. Logan tensed as the other mutant drew close to them, but Rogue laid a calming hand on his arm. Maybe this was one of those ‘little things' he had told her to look out for that first day. Or would the woman be more likely to help them? If she was part of the breeding program as well, there was a chance that she too would do anything to get herself and her unborn baby out of here.

Tissue noticed Rogue's gaze in the other woman's direction.

"That's Sandy," he said. "She was supposed to be bred with my… DNA, but I can make it so that it's impossible for Samuels and Jackson to retrieve my genetic material. She and I are just used as tools against others now."

Rogue nodded slowly, remembering Samuels and Jackson's conversation from the first day, "They used her to capture us while we were sleeping."

"Yes," Tissue confirmed. "Sandy can cause unconsciousness in other people and mutants, or keep them that way. She doesn't want to help them, but they're holding her younger sister in another facility, and if Sandy doesn't cooperate…"

Logan grunted when Tissue trailed off, signaling that he and Rogue understood.

From that day on, their visits to the yard occurred daily. A week and a half later, Rogue started cramping in the early hours of morning. Logan refused to accept the truth at first, even though he had not heard their child's heart beating within Rogue for two days whenever he laid his ear on her gently rounded belly. When she began bleeding, Logan roared with grief and pain, the sound echoing through the heavy door to their cell and down the halls. It took six guards and two tazers to pry Logan away from Rogue. She was returned to their cell four hours later in fresh sweatpants and a t-shirt.

Rogue's eyes were haunted, and she wouldn't respond to any of Logan's questions accept to mumble something about a miscarriage. He had to force-feed her in the days that followed. He carried her to and from the toilet in their cell when she needed it, washing her and himself once a day in the curtain-less shower stall in the corner. The one time they were led outside, he had to carry her the entire time, and she kept her face buried in his chest.

He growled when Sandy approached them, but she ignored him, laying a slender hand on Rogue's head.

"She needs to sleep," the woman said gently.

Logan nodded reluctantly. He often woke in the middle of night to find Rogue lying on her back beside him, staring at the ceiling. The depression that had hit her with the loss of their child had caused her to shut down, and he had been forced to bury his own grief in order to keep her going.

Sandy's hand glowed above Rogue's face, and Logan watched as the slip of a girl who owned his heart fell asleep.

"Thank you," he gruffly told Sandy.

The purple-haired woman smiled sadly, "It cannot even begin to make up for my part in getting you both here."

"We do what we have to… to protect the ones we love," Logan told her, letting her know in his way that he didn't blame her.

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A week after the loss of her child, Samuels and Jackson started running tests on Rogue again each day. Five days later, they came into the cell with her on the return trip. Logan noted that Rogue looked slightly more alive and alert than she had since it had happened.

"Rogue is ovulating," Samuels told Logan. "We're going for artificial insemination this time to increase the chances of conception."

Logan growled a low warning, but the doctors ignored him, Jackson handing a sample cup to a guard who held it out to Logan. He, in turn, ignored it.

Samuels sighed. "If that's the way you want to be, we will use another male to impregnate her."

A glance at Rogue's pale, shocked face was enough to convince him. Logan snatched the cup from the guard, standing in silent defiance until all but Rogue had filed from the room.

He framed her face with his hands, forcing her to look at him. "I'm doing this for you. You have to promise me that if something goes wrong, you won't break on me again. I can't survive this without you."

"Love you," she responded, leaning forward to kiss him softly. "I'm sorry I got so wrapped up in the loss. It wasn't anything they did to me that made me lose the baby. I failed you, after everything you had to go through for me."

"You didn't fail me, Marie, it was just a tragedy we had to endure. And you know I would go through hell for you, darlin'. Just so long as I know you'll be waitin' for me on the other side."

"I promise," Rogue responded.

Logan filled the cup under the limited privacy of the blanket on their bed. Rogue stayed curled beside him, encouraging him with soft words and touches. She was taken away with the sample, returning two hours later with it inside her. That night, Logan made love to her for the first time since they had been captured, keeping it slow and gentle and under the blanket as far from prying eyes as possible. They both wanted to feel that the growing potential for life inside Rogue had come from their love instead of a lab.

Although the pregnancy took, and both Rogue and Logan were completely obedient to avoid any punishment that would harm or stress either of them or the baby, Rogue only made it to the five-week mark before once again miscarrying.

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Logan and Rogue were both strapped to examination tables, silently waiting with Samuels and Jackson for the return of their latest barrage of tests. Tissue stood in the corner in case Logan decided to act out.

"Well, it looks like we're going to have to start harvesting Rogue's eggs," Samuels announced when he had read through the report his lab assistant had brought in. "I'm afraid, girl, that you would never be able to carry a child to term. I guess Sandy can still be useful to the breeding program after all."

That last was said with a glaring look tossed at Tissue, but all Logan heard was that his and Rogue's child was going to be given to someone else. And if the scientists no longer needed he and Rogue for their genetic material, the chance was high that they wouldn't be needed at all. He had to do something.

Popping one set of claws and ignoring the burning, tearing pain that resulted, Logan freed himself from his examination table. The two scientists had become used to their two subjects always obeying and hadn't tightened the restraints as much as they could. Rogue was freed as well by the time the guards started filling the room. Logan pulled her in front of him and held his claws so that if he stabbed her, the adamantium blades would slice through her heart and into his. Rogue held his hand steady against the pained shaking the damage to his arm caused. He had no idea how long it would take the guards to get the control collars off and his mutation activated, but he hoped it would be long enough that it would be too late to revive him or Rogue.

"If he can reattach limbs," Logan growled with a jerk of his chin toward Tissue, "he can certainly fix Rogue."

Samuels looked pissed at Logan's daring, but Jackson took the relevant file and handed it to Tissue, who scanned it quickly, his face falling as he read.

"I'm sorry, Logan, but this is a genetic anomaly," Tissue said gently. "I can't fix those."

"If we can't have our child, no one else will either," Logan growled quietly, getting a confirming nod from a quiet Rogue.

Tissue looked thoughtful for a minute, "There may be another way. I can create tissue and organs, not just heal them."

"So?" Logan grunted, keeping a wary eye on the guards, who so far had held off at Jackson's commands.

Tissue's mouth twisted in a pale reflection of a smile, "Logan, have you ever seen the movie Junior?"

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It didn't take much for Samuels and Jackson to agree to at least try Tissue's idea first. Something about Sandy not really being an ideal candidate for surrogacy because of a lack of similar genetic markers to either of the biological parents. So it was decided that Logan would become the first pregnant male, an idea that grew even more appealing to the two scientists when they realized it could potentially double productivity in future pairings if it worked.

Tissue ran a test first with Logan's healing factor, giving the Wolverine an extra finger before the mutation suppression device was removed from Logan's neck. The digit died, shriveled and fell off in a matter of minutes. They would not be able to remove the control collar from Logan's neck for any reason for the duration of the pregnancy.

It was an odd but painless sensation when Tissue created a uterine cavity within Logan's abdomen. The delivery, of course, would have to be caesarean, and it was decided to be scheduled for a week past the eight-month mark to lower the risk of complications as the pregnancy approached the due date. Eggs were harvested from Rogue's ovaries and fertilized with Logan's sperm in a Petri dish. The three resulting fertilized ovum were injected into the created womb, and two weeks later it was confirmed that one of them had attached itself successfully to the uterus wall.

A small paper cup of vitamins and hormone supplements came with every one of Logan's meal trays from that point on. He went through a period of morning sickness that Rogue knew he was ashamed for her to see, but she couldn't let his sacrifice for her go ignored, and she cleaned his face after each bout, rubbing his scalp with strong strokes to help him relax. She did everything she could to make sure he was always comfortable.

Rogue was now the one left in their cell to wait. It hurt her to know that she was missing the evidence of their child's growth that was inevitably presented during Samuels and Jackson's examinations and tests. She almost kissed Tissue when he smuggled a stethoscope into the yard one day so she could hear the baby's heartbeat, but she refrained when Logan narrowed his eyes at the other man. As much as Logan was grateful to Tissue for his part in their child still being theirs, Logan was also a lot more territorial now. Rogue would have teased him about hormones, but she didn't think he'd appreciate it.

It was obvious to Rogue in the beginning that Logan had done this for her, to make sure that she knew if she couldn't carry his child, no other woman would either. But it slowly became less about the "have to" and more about his wanting their child to be theirs and only theirs. More and more signs of the life growing inside him became obvious, and Logan became almost as protective of their unborn child as he was of her. They spent a lot of the quiet time in their cell talking about the future, as if they were in their own small home instead of being held by breeders.

The day eventually came when the scientists discovered the sex of the baby. The Wolverine and the Rogue had produced a son.

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Logan lazily opened one eye to watch Rogue as she pulled back the blanket that had been covering both of them. When she noticed his attention on her, she smiled softly and slid down on the bed a bit. Logan was more than used to the morning ritual Rogue had begun nearly a full five months ago, and he shifted slightly so the fingers of one hand tangled gently in her hair.

"Hey, little man," she cooed to his belly, lying beside him with one small hand pressed to the bulge. Before they had known the sex of their child it had been ‘baby' in place of ‘man.' In the last few weeks the baby had begun reacting to her voice, stilling when she spoke and kicking excitedly against the press of her hand when she stopped. "Your daddy and I can't wait to meet you, little man."

There was a flutter of movement under the gentle press of her fingers, and Rogue tilted her head back to smile up at Logan, sharing the wonder of the moment with him.

"We both love you," he said.

He wasn't sure if he spoke of he and the child to Rogue, or he and Rogue to the child. Both were true, no matter that the baby was still three months and a couple of weeks from being born. How could anyone not love her?

Rogue's smile widened, and she moved back up the bed to touch her mouth to his in a deep kiss. Logan sighed contently and shifted slightly, trying to make himself more comfortable. Rogue felt his movement.

"Need me to rub the small of your back?" she asked.

Having to sleep flat on his back all the time affected Logan, and Rogue did what she could to help him feel less uncomfortable. His adamantium skeleton was in too much risk of crushing something vital if he slept in any other position. Logan grunted an affirmation and rolled to his side. A moment later, Rogue had lifted his shirt a few inches above his waist and was deeply kneading the muscles in the small of his back with her talented fingers.

Logan's appreciative groan almost masked a rumbling sound Rogue didn't recognize, but she stilled and concentrated on listening.

"Did you hear something?" she asked Logan.

He didn't get a chance to answer her before Samuels and four of the guards burst into the room, one of the guards hurrying toward them with two syringes. Two more guards entered the room seconds later, a reinforced gurney between them.

"Get the Wolverine onto the gurney before you sedate him, we'll only sedate the girl if she doesn't cooperate," Samuels instructed.

It was automatic to assume they were being moved, though Rogue didn't understand why Samuels was in such a hurry, or why Jackson wasn't with him. Logan obediently moved to the gurney, Rogue helping him. He was sedated quickly a few seconds before chaos erupted.

The rumble Rogue had heard before sounded again, but much closer this time, and she finally recognized it as part of the building being destroyed.

Rogue, Logan, if either of you can hear me, get down.

Her eyes widening at hearing Jean's telepathic voice for the first time in so long, Rogue frantically looked over the gurney, which the guards were securely strapping the unconscious Logan onto. Seeing a handle she was fairly certain would lower the gurney, she pulled it. The guards started shouting at her, but Rogue ignored them and carefully covered Logan's upper body with her own.

Rogue had acted just in time as a moment later a wide red beam crashed through the wall just a few inches shy of the ceiling. The walls collapsed, knocking down all but one of the guards. Some of the cement and mortar struck her back, but Rogue didn't think she was seriously injured. She turned her head to see Scott come through the hazy, cement-dust filled air. Jean was a few feet behind him, lifting the remaining guard with her telekinesis and flinging him out of the way, his gun going in the opposite direction.

"Rogue, what are you doing, you could have been killed," Scott berated when he saw her. "Logan can heal if…"

She moved then, exposing Logan and his current state.

Scott stopped speaking and stared, his jaw hanging open.

Jean was the one who broke him out of his shocked stupor, informing him, "Scott, Storm has told me that she is providing cover, but there are signs of reinforcements coming. We need to get out of here."

Back in leader mode, Scott nodded, "Rogue, can you walk?"

"Logan was just sedated, he won't be waking up for awhile if it's the one they usually use on him and the collars suppress our powers," she responded quickly. "But yes, I can walk."

"Great," he said. "Jean, if you could control the gurney with your telekinesis while I cover our escape; let's get out of here."

"Wait!" Rogue suddenly cried. She hadn't seen Sandy since Logan's implantation, and Tissue had been kept from them for at least a week. But she held onto the hope that they were still alive; after all, they were very useful mutants to the breeders. "There are two other mutants being held…"

"They were moved already, we have no way of tracking where they were taken," Jean interrupted.

Rogue hung her head, but hope remained alive since Jean had said ‘moved' and not ‘killed.' She stayed close to the levitating gurney all the way to the Blackbird. Jean gave her a dirty look when she refused to take a seat in the front part of the jet, but Rogue was not about to let Logan wake up without her there and get stressed out unnecessarily. She stayed by Logan's head while Jean performed an examination, staying out of the older woman's way as much as possible.

Jean turned to her when she was done, a frown on her face, "There's something I don't understand. The fetus is barely five months along and you've been missing for nearly eight months. If this was what your captors intended, why is he only this far along, and why aren't you pregnant as well?"

Rogue flinched, a tear coming to her eye as she admitted softly, "It was Logan's choice when I couldn't carry a child to term. I miscarried twice before Samuels and Jackson discovered that I couldn't."

"Well, at least they weren't able to force you to give them what they wanted," Jean replied.

Rogue frowned, feeling like Jean didn't understand the situation at all if that was how she responded. But what did she care? She and Logan and their unborn son were safe now. They were going home.

When Logan showed no signs of waking on the flight back to Westchester (Scott informed Rogue that the lab had been well hidden in a remote part of Montana), Jean shifted her attention to getting the control collar off of Rogue. The pass-code to unlock the device was actually a specific frequency of sound waves. After many attempts, Jean finally found the right frequency just as they landed.

Feeling odd for only a moment after the rush of the return of her powers, Rogue told Jean, "You don't need to use telekinesis to get the gurney to medical. I'll push him."

Jean shrugged, "Alright."

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"You can't turn his off," Rogue said firmly. "His healing factor will destroy the uterine cavity and kill our baby."

After shifting Logan from the gurney to one of the beds in the medical room, Rogue had again refused to leave Logan's side. Jean had been angrier this time, ignoring Rogue completely until she had forced herself between Jean's fiddling fingers and the control collar on Logan's neck.

"I know," Jean answered. At Rogue's startled look, she added, "We have no way of knowing what kind of steps the geneticists were going to take to ensure this pregnancy continued, or even if they were. It will be better for Logan if we take care of the situation now, when there isn't as much for his healing factor to fix."

"You can't kill our baby." Rogue's voiced was soft, a desperate plea.

"It's not natural, Rogue," Jean said firmly, a look on her face Rogue had only seen a few times before.

Rogue stared at Jean in shock. The woman in front of her had just reduced the miracle of life to an ‘it.' Samuels and Jackson might have kidnapped and imprisoned her, impregnated her and conducted numerous medical tests on her, and done the same things to Logan (on top of a bit of torture), but not once had they tried to end a life. And now Dr. Jean Grey-Summers, a mutant who was supposed to be caring and compassionate and Rogue's friend, was more than just willing to do so. She was dead set on it.

Rogue thought about running to the Professor, but she knew she couldn't leave Jean alone with Logan. With her out of the way, the older woman would definitely try to remove the collar before Logan had woken up. Concentrating hard internally but keeping her eyes on the redhead, Rogue mentally called for the mentor to so many.

Jean has informed me of the situation, Rogue, and I agree with her analysis. We have no way of knowing how much damage this unusual situation is doing to Logan's body. Chances are great neither he nor the fetus would survive the full gestation period.

That fetus is our baby, our son, Logan's and mine, Rogue mentally argued. You have no right to make this decision for us.

Rogue could feel the Professor sigh in her head.

Rogue, I know you have convinced yourself because of your feelings for Logan that the fetus is biologically both of yours, but I am sure the men who captured you were not conducting their experiments just to help you procreate with the man you have been infatuated with since the first time you met him. We have no way of knowing what they did to the fetus and I'm not willing to risk Logan's health to find out.

She tried once more to argue with him, to explain to Xavier that she and Logan had been in a real relationship even before their capture, that she had been pregnant the natural way when they first been taken, but the Professor had cut her off from his mind. Rogue could only wait and hope Logan woke up before Jean found the right frequency to open the power-suppressing collar.

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Jean wasn't able to unlock the collar before Logan woke. But to Rogue's shock and utter dismay it didn't end up mattering. Logan's eyes opened and flew around the room, settling only briefly on Rogue before resting on Jean. His entire body relaxed, and Rogue thought it was from the fact that they were home. It took her a few more minutes to realize she was wrong.

"Jeannie," he breathed.

That should have been her second clue that things weren't the way she had thought. Although Logan still occasionally flirted with the redhead – to keep up the status quo and mess with Scott – he hadn't called her by that pet name in some time. Since long before Rogue had become more to him than his best friend.

"Logan," Rogue called to him softly. When he turned his eyes to her and smiled slightly, Rogue said gently, "Tell Jean not to take the collar off. You know what will happen to our baby if she does."

Logan's head rolled back to Jean again, "You can get it off?"

Jean nodded, "I already removed Rogue's. I just need to find the right frequency, but Rogue won't let me close enough."

Logan turned back to Rogue again, his features grim, commanding, "Let Jeannie do her job, kid."

Rogue just stood there, her mouth hanging open. She was too shocked to resist when Jean firmly guided her out of the room. Storm was in the hall, and once she saw the vacant expression on Rogue's face, she led the younger woman through the lower level of the mansion to the elevator. Assuming Rogue was in shock from finally being rescued or just overly tired from her ordeal with the breeders, Storm escorted her all the way to her room.

"Take a shower, put on some clean clothes, and get some sleep, child," Storm ordered gently. "Things will look brighter tomorrow. You are home now, and safe."

Rogue mechanically followed Storm's first two commands. By the end of her shower, she was shaking violently, tears slipping silently down her face. She knew if she looked in the mirror her eyes would be completely bloodshot. She pulled clothes out of her dresser, her movements automatic and stilted since she had left Storm in the hall more than ten minutes before. Rogue sagged against the piece of furniture, a sob stuck in her throat. She was unable to breathe for long moments, and she knew if she didn't do something, her sorrow might put her into a catatonic state. She had nearly been destroyed when she lost her first child, and this was so much worse.

A spark of anger came at the thought that this was being done to her by the people who were supposed to care the most. Rogue latched onto that anger, able to build a mental cage around her despair now that she had something else to focus on. She fed the rage, wondering how Jean and the Professor thought they were in the right, performing what amounted to an abortion this late in a pregnancy. And Logan… how could he so easily allow it, ask for it, after all the two of them had gone through?

Pregnancy had its downsides, and it couldn't have been easy for someone as blatantly male as Logan to go through things that only women had ever experienced before. Especially when he had been backed into a corner that had forced him to accept it. When she had lost the first of the two children she had been unable to carry to term, Logan had been upset at her withdrawal from the world, but he had never said anything about the death of their child hurting him.

There was a good chance that he had never wanted a baby with her at all, that he had accepted it the first time because it had happened and he had promised to always take care of her. After that, it was a matter of getting her to want to survive. Rogue's anger intensified. He had done only what was necessary to keep his word… he had never loved her at all!

She had fooled herself into believing his words over the time they had been together because she wouldn't have accepted any less from him. But she could see now that she had been a convenience, a warm body that wasn't committed to someone else. After all, he had never made a move in her direction until Jean and Scott had been married for more than a year and she herself had become touchable. And whenever he did, it wasn't where any of the other X-Men would find out about it.

Rogue was furious that the others weren't at least willing to listen to her side of the situation, but he had made it pointless anyway by asking Jean to take off the collar. Logan didn't have the X-Men's excuse of not knowing the whole story and not being comfortable with the sudden odd occurrence. He knew that this was their child. And he was still going along with their son's murder, even requesting it.

The only thing that was truly hers, the only thing that had ever been that precious to her besides Logan's apparently false love for her, was being taken away, with absolutely no way of ever getting it back. Rogue wanted to lash out, to take from each of them what was most precious. And as member's of Xavier's coddled X-Men, their abilities were what they would miss the most. Their recent actions proved that they didn't care about people, only power. After all, what use was Logan to them powerless and pregnant, not to mention unable to unleash his claws.

Rogue was seething, and something inside her snapped. She had never wanted to use her skin before, never wanted to take what others weren't willingly sharing, but that had changed. And with that change, the walls she had unknowingly built around the strength of her own ability crumbled. The core of who she was, the essence of her being, was a magnet for power, a sponge. No longer held back by her desire to control it so it wouldn't hurt anyone, her ability went seeking outside of her, pulling to it what it found outside of the walls of her room, outside of the mansion to the grounds. Curiously, because she was no longer afraid of hurting anyone, the mutants affected hardly felt a thing, aside from a few who felt but dismissed a momentary dizziness. When Rogue's ability had reached as far as it could, gathering to it everything in its path, it slammed back into her, knocking her to her knees and nearly overloading her with new abilities and the knowledge to use them.

How strong she had been before was nothing compared to the powers and abilities she now had coursing inside her. And because her power had touched his, Rouge had no problem hiding the change in her status from Xavier. Rising with an ease that belied how hard she'd struck the floor, Rogue made her way to the mirror in her room. She had not wanted any of the less human-looking students' physical mutations, and apparently her power had compensated by only changing one thing about her outward appearance.

She stared at herself for a few minutes before a light near her chest winked at her. A reflection of light had caught Logan's dog tag. For whatever reason, Samuels and Jackson had never made her take it off. Perhaps it had gotten stuck inside the control collar when they had first put it on her; she didn't really care now. She lifted her hand and yanked the offending thing off, the metal floating easily to her hand. She had suppressed Magneto's power long ago so she wouldn't be reminded of what he had done to her, how much hate and impotent fury he made her feel. But fury was now her friend and she brought up her memories of that night, playing them over and over again in her head, never getting as far as when she had known the X-Men and Logan were there to help her. After all, it hadn't been her they cared about; it had been humanity.

With a small snarl, she tossed the metal piece onto her bed. Someone would find it and give it back to the person it belonged to. She couldn't stay. With the way she felt, it would be dangerous to risk coming face to face with certain residents of the mansion. Dangerous, potentially lethally, for them. Besides, she had things to do.

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Scott was on his way to the med lab after completing the Blackbird's post-flight checklist to check on Jean's progress with Logan when he noticed Rogue walking in the general direction of the front door. She was wearing a jacket and boots, both unnecessary inside the heated mansion. There was also a small duffel bag slung over one shoulder. One thing, however, was blaringly obvious in its absence. The dog tag that had hung from her neck for nearly the entire three years she had been living with them was no longer on its chain. The chain was missing too, her neck bare of adornment.

"Rogue," he called softly to her.

She gave no indication of hearing or seeing him. Scott moved to stand in her path, and when she moved to brush past him, he caught hold of her arms.

"You should be in bed resting after everything you went through, not wandering the halls. Come on, Rogue."

The young woman known to Scott only as Rogue looked up and met his gaze straight on. Scott gasped in shock. One of her eyes, the right one, was still it's normal dark brown, but the other one was a swirl of colors: green, blue, gray, brown, black... even red and yellow. But neither one had the spark of life Scott had come to associate with her. Anger, so deep he cowered just to see it, was the only emotion he could distinguish in her eyes.

"Rogue is no longer," a cold voice, much older than he remembered hers being, informed him. "I am Rage."

She moved to brush past him more firmly this time, but she tilted her head and seemed to consider something. She glanced into his eyes again.

"Tell your wife if I ever see her again, I will take retribution for the death of my son. And Xavier better take that into consideration if he ever decides to try to find me."

Scott swallowed hard. Jean had informed him telepathically of the situation and Rogue's mistaken belief that the child was hers. But he had no doubt that Rogue... no, she truly was a different person now... Rage was telling the truth. She would retaliate and feel completely justified in doing so. He didn't blame her. He had no idea what she had been through while being held, but it was understood that something must have happened… the scientists would not have kept her alive that long otherwise. Could she really be at fault for wanting to believe that something of hers had come out of it?

He also felt it was wrong to just destroy an innocent life, no matter how it had started, but he had been outvoted by Jean and Xavier, who felt Logan was too important to the cause to risk him.

Scott nodded mutely when he realized Rage was waiting impatiently for a response. She seemed to be satisfied with it, and Scott watched in silent awe as Rage left the mansion. It took him several minutes to gather his courage to tell anyone else what had happened. By the time any of her “friends” tried to go after her, Rage was long gone.

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It took Rage a week to get back to Montana. She had stopped along the way to find a telekinetic to replace Jean Grey-Summers' power with. She wanted nothing from the woman who had destroyed her life, though in many ways she wished that the X-Men would come after her so she could destroy the other woman.

Though the bodies had been removed, if Samuels and the guards had indeed died when the walls collapsed on them, the building itself that the lab was located in appeared to have been suddenly abandoned by all its inhabitants. They had, however, left their equipment and papers. At first it seemed suspicious, but Rage decided it had only been a week, maybe whoever was ultimately in charge simply hadn't gotten around yet to clearing out the other evidence. She was determined not to give them the chance.

Rage moved quickly through the building to the lab she and Logan had been studied in. Ripping out the locks on the filing cabinets, she found the file pertaining to Logan's pregnancy. She opened it briefly, running a tender fingertip over both of the sonogram pictures located inside. She flipped through the papers until she found the results from the amniocentesis that had been performed when Logan had reached three months. She didn't understand a lot of the genetic marker comments made by Samuels and Jackson, but the comparisons between her DNA and the baby’s, as well as Logan's and the baby's, made what she had already known absolutely clear. The child that Jean, Xavier and Logan had each had a hand in killing had been hers and Logan's. If she ever did face down any of the three of them, she had proof now that her decided brand of justice would be justified.

Exiting the building, Rage took a look around from the air, finding a large propane tank on one side of the building. Flying to the opposite side and landing a good distance from it, Rage called forth Scott Summer's power and sent a solar-powered concussive blast through the building and into the tank on the other side. The propane reacted immediately, setting off a massive explosion that rocked the ground as it leveled the lab. She mentally fed the fire, staying to watch until she was sure nothing from what had occurred inside would ever be useful to the breeders.

The lab was surrounded by wilderness that teemed with unseen life, so when the fire had done its job, Rage brought in a freezing rain to fall just on the fire, putting it out quickly and efficiently.

"Your powers have grown," a voice behind her remarked. "If they'd gotten a hold of you when you were like this, they wouldn't have bothered wasting time breeding you, they would have just used you to wipe the rest of us out."

Recognizing his voice, Rage didn't spin and attack Tissue, instead turning slowly and facing him.

"Why are you here?" she asked. "Is Sandy nearby ready to capture me again, because I can guarantee you her power would no longer work on me."

Tissue shook his head, staring at the smoldering remains of the building they had both been kept in. "No, we escaped when they moved us. Sandy put all the guards and the driver to sleep, and we were able to get away after we killed them." Rage smiled maliciously, but Tissue, not seeing it, continued. "Jackson was there too, so he's gone. Samuels died in an attack on the lab about a week ago, which I assume is when you escaped."

"Good," Rage answered shortly.

Before Tissue could say anything else, Rage took to the sky and left the area. She didn't want the other mutant to ask about Logan or their child, and she was afraid she might hurt him if she stayed around too long. He did, after all, have a direct hand in her even having had the hope of having a child with the man she had loved.

Others she would not spare. And to start from when she and Logan had first bonded seemed as good a place as any. If Magneto and his followers had never been after her, she would have ridden a short time with Logan, but most likely would have been dropped somewhere by him and finished making her way to Alaska. She certainly never would have had the experiences that forged their initial connection. Nor would she have lived at Xavier's and had the time to grow into the relationship that had gotten her where she was. Magneto, of course, would be nearly impossible to get to. He was being held by the government after all.

It was a bit difficult to find Mystique and the rest of the Brotherhood. About a year and a half after the events at the Statue of Liberty, ‘Senator Kelly' had been up for reelection but had lost. Political analysts had put the blame on ‘his' sudden and unexplained change in stance on the mutant issue. It would have been easier to stalk the woman knowing she was in Washington, DC, but there wasn't anything to be done about it now. Rage was forced to rely on vague memories of Magneto's to track down the different hiding places employed by the Brotherhood. It took her two weeks and three different safe houses before she found the right one.

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Mystique let out a rather undignified shriek of surprise and fear when the front door was forced violently of its hinges. It was struck so hard that it flew across the room and slammed into the far wall with a sharp cracking sound before stopping. She would have immediately yelled at Sabretooth, had he not been standing less than two feet from her watching the now open doorway with curious interest.

Mystique turned her own attention in that direction in time to watch a much slighter figure than she would have expected enter the living room. Mystique glanced behind the girl, expecting to see the X-Men, or just the Wolverine at the very least, but the girl was the only one there. Her gaze moved constantly between Mystique and Sabretooth, evidently waiting to see which of them would make the first move against her.

There were two white streaks in the front of her hair and something appeared to be wrong with one of her eyes, but it was definitely the same girl Erik had used in his failed attempt to mutate the world leaders at Liberty Island. But more than just her outward appearance had apparently changed.

"You shoulda known better than to come here without the runt, girly," Sabretooth growled at their uninvited guest.

Sabretooth either didn't notice the small, sadistic grin on the girl's face or he didn't think it was anything to worry about. He ran at her, the girl simply standing her ground. Mystique had always warned him that one day he was going to rush into a situation that even his strength and healing could not get him out of. And when a sickeningly wet crack echoed from Sabretooth's chest running into a tiny fist, Mystique realized that today would be that day. She watched in twisted fascination as Sabretooth staggered back a step or two from the blow, a shocked look on his face. His breath wheezed and gurgled as the ribs that had snapped and punctured his lungs slowly re-knit themselves.

The girl struck first this time, jumping up onto the much larger male. She clamped both bare hands on his uncovered face, and Sabretooth began choking for an altogether different reason this time. When he began to fall toward her, where he would surely crush the smaller mutant beneath his dead weight, she simply flicked her finger at his head, changing the direction of his descent, hovering in the air at about the same height as when she had been on top of him. Sabretooth crashed to the floor, and she settled lightly on her feet near his head, grabbing the shoulder of his shirt to drag him out of the house.

Mystique followed, having a disturbing need to see just what the girl would do to the previously-un-killable Sabretooth. Using power that Mystique easily recognized as Magneto's, the girl called pieces of the metal fence to her, sharpening the sides to razor edges. She then waited until Sabretooth had struggled once more to consciousness, letting him see the blades right before they severed his arms and legs from his torso. She saved the removal of his head for last, silencing anguished, animalistic screams of terror and pain.

With a wave of a small hand, Sabretooth's pieces separated and burst into flames. The fires were so hot that Mystique felt them from more than fifteen feet away, and the other woman watched until all that was left of the feral mutant was ashes and scorched bones.

"Hello, Mystique," she said with a smirk as she turned in the shape shifter's direction. "I don't think he'll heal from that, do you?"

Mystique swallowed hard, "I didn't do anything to you when Erik had you, Ro…"

"My name is Rage now," the woman formerly known as Rogue told Mystique with an impatient tone. "And I have a proposition for you."

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A month later...

Claxons sounded as the perimeter alarm at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was tripped. The X-Men, along with the Junior team, didn't bother putting on their uniforms. Even one second wasted in defending their base was too risky. Informed by the school's computer system that the invasion was a frontal attack, the group, including Charles Xavier himself, spilled out onto the front lawn.

The Brotherhood was waiting for them. But that's all they were doing. Waiting. They didn't attack, and Mystique was standing in front of the group, looking slightly bored as the X-Men took up defensive positions and tried to figure out what was going on. Sabretooth was nowhere to be seen but there were a handful of other Brotherhood members present who hadn't been involved in the Statue of Liberty incident but with whom they'd had other run ins, and Mystique seemed to have found herself a new recruit, a cloaked figure that paced at the back of the knot of intruders.

Xavier wheeled forward to address Mystique. "Why are you here? You must know that whatever you have planned will fail when you go up against all of the X-Men at once."

Mystique smiled slyly at the X-Men's leader. "Tell me where they're keeping Magneto or I will unleash my newest weapon."

Xavier's eyebrows rose. "Whoever your latest recruit is, Mystique, he or she cannot take on all of us."

Mystique chuckled dryly. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, Charles."

The cloaked and hooded figure from the back of the group of Brotherhood mutants strode forward to stand beside Mystique. The blue skinned woman raised one hand to lower the figure's hood. Even before her head lifted, the white bangs and long auburn locks gave away the newest Brotherhood member's identity. Several of the X-Men gasped at the evidence of Rogue's betrayal while Professor Xavier frowned in concern. The young woman's multi-colored left eye, which Scott had told him about when she had left the mansion, was glowing slightly.

"What have you done to her this time, Mystique?" he asked.

"Me?" Mystique laughed, "From what Rage has told me, she is this way because of the man she loved... and the woman who helped him kill their child." Yellow eyes locked on Jean before darting back to Xavier. "Rage has no trouble seeing any of you as enemies since not one of you was on her side."

Bobby took a step forward, perhaps to argue the point. It proved to be a mistake. A wall of fire surrounded him before he could take another step. When he tried to freeze it, it immediately melted the frost he sent its way. Attention shifted to St. John, but it was quickly apparent he had not been responsible for Bobby's predicament. The young man also known as Pyro was trapped in a cage of ice, the hand that typically held his lighter encased in a solid block of frozen water. One by one, but faster than it took for the rest to react, all the X-Men were disabled in a way that their powers could not help them. Xavier and Jean were the last two able to move.

Both stared into Rage's oddly colored eyes, trying to reach her mentally. They came up against a mental shield stronger than either of them had ever encountered.

"She took all of our powers and now she's using them against us," Jean observed. "Rogue, Rage, whoever you think you are right now, this isn't right, nor is it necess…"

Rage waved her hand in Jean's direction, causing no sound to come from the redhead's mouth. Rage's eyes flashed, and she was suddenly right in front of the older woman, her hand threateningly wrapping around Jean's throat but not tightening.

"I wouldn't touch your power with a ten foot pole, and I will decide what is necessary," she bit off.

She smirked at Jean, able to see all the age lines on the other woman's face that couldn't be hidden by make-up that close up. Jean noticed her perusal and began shaking. Rage almost snorted when she realized that Jean was less concerned for her life than she was that someone might see past the youthful veneer she showed the world. But Rage's amusement died quickly. She could never push her anger back for more than a few seconds.

Rage tightened her hold on Jean's neck slightly and growled low, "Give me one good reason not to take revenge for my son's death right here and now."

Jean's eyes widened as she trembled, and Rage let her go, turning to find Xavier wheeling closer to them. He opened his mouth when he saw that her attention had turned to him.

"Don't even try it, Xavier," Rage snapped. "Save your psychobabble for someone who'll listen. Even though I already knew what I would find, I went back to that lab and retrieved all the data from the amniocentesis. The child was mine. Some great savior of innocent mutants you turned out to be."

Xavier flinched, but tried again, "Rage, listen to us, none of this is..."

The Professor trailed off when the sound of the mansion's front door being slammed open was heard.

"What the hell was all the racket about if you were just going to be quiet when you got outside? If one of you had helped me up off the damn couch, I would have been out here a lot fucking faster!"

Rage paled at the first sound of Logan's voice and slowly turned to watch him waddle out of the mansion's front door. Her lips parted and tears poured from her eyes when she saw the evidence that her son was still very much alive inside his father.

Logan continued to grumble as he carefully navigated the front stairs, cautiously watching the ground as he moved awkwardly. He was dressed in low-slung sweatpants, and a t-shirt too large for his shoulders draped over his bulging belly. He had slip-on shoes on; not something one would usually find on the Wolverine, but Rage doubted he'd let anyone help him tie his shoes when he couldn't reach them. Anyone, that is, but her… and she hadn't been there. When Logan had gained the relatively hazard-free surface of the lawn, he finally looked up. His eyes locked immediately with Rage's, and she saw him mouth her name.

’Marie.'

The impenetrable wall she had built around her agony so she wouldn't have to deal with it suddenly didn't exist anymore, and neither did the reason for the greatest pain she had ever known. Rage released a sound somewhere between a sob and a disbelieving laugh. The control collar was still around Logan's neck, the small green indicator light still blinking.

Behind her, Mystique realized she had just lost her most powerful weapon. "Brotherhood..."

"No," Rage swirled to face the blue-skinned mutant. "You know I can destroy all of you. Leave here. Don't come back unless you know me and mine are gone."

"We had a deal," Mystique snarled. "I paid you two million for your services. You were going to help me free Magneto."

"So I could kill him," Rage told her bluntly. "And when you do eventually see Magneto again, tell him to consider the money penance for almost killing me."

Mystique glared, but, well aware of just what Rage could do if provoked, she motioned for the Brotherhood to follow her, and the group left the school's grounds. Seeing one of their strongest enemies simply give up must have made the X-Men even more afraid of her, because despite the fact that Rage had dropped the powers she had used against them, they all stood ready to act at the slightest provocation.

But Rage didn't care.

She turned around to stare at Logan again. He had moved a few feet closer to her, one hand splayed over his pregnant belly. Rage moved cautiously the rest of the distance between them. Logan reached out and snagged her ungloved hand and pressed it to the left side of his abdominal swell.

"He missed you," Logan growled softly as their child kicked his mother's palm. "Talk to him."

Rage dropped easily to her knees and pressed a kiss above the spot her hand still rested against, skimming Logan's hand with her lips as she did so.

"Hey little man," she cooed softly, the baby's foot fluttering several times against the light pressure of her fingers.

It was a stronger, larger presence than it had been the last time she had felt it. She had missed so much, and Rage made a decision then not to miss anything more.

She could still feel the X-Men's uneasy stares on her, so she lowered her voice to a whisper to ask Logan, "How?"

"You still fly?" he grunted as he sent a glare at the X-Men.

Knowing Logan didn't want to talk where the others would hear, she stood and wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could.

Rage leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Better," before teleporting the three of them to his room.

She let go of him in case he needed his space until things could be cleared up between them, but Logan snagged her arm and pulled her close. He dipped his head to take her mouth in a hungry kiss. Empathy was one of the many skills she had picked up while they had been apart, and tears of happiness slid down her face when she felt the strength of his love for her. It was just as powerful as hers for him.

The other strongest emotion she could feel in him was anger, something she was well acquainted with, but it wasn't directed at her. Rage had no idea what had happened… the day they were ‘rescued' or during the time he had spent without her… but she knew Logan would tell her the important details.

Logan pulled his mouth away from hers slowly, leaving lingering kisses on her lips, cheeks and eyes. He gently caressed the tears from her cheeks with his broad thumbs, tilting her chin up so he could look into her eyes.

He traced her left eyebrow slowly, asking gently, "Does it bother you?"

Knowing he was referring to the oddly colored iris beneath the eyebrow, Rage shook her head. "No. I don't see any different with it either, it was just my body's way of compensating for all the powers I've taken in."

"Good," he grunted lightly. Logan pulled her close again and buried his face in the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. He released his breath in a long, slow sigh, murmuring, "I missed you."

She pulled slightly away again and led him to sit on the bed. It couldn't be easy having his balance thrown off by all that weight low and in the front. Rage knew his adamantium encased skeleton had to be giving him trouble too with how long he'd had to go without his healing factor and other natural mutations.

When Logan was settled and she had sat down facing him, Rage asked simply, "Tell me?"

Logan sighed and began, "I've never been able to get the whole story out of Dr. Summers," Rage lifted an eyebrow at the fact that Logan didn't use Jean's first name anymore… in fact he had snarled her name, "but from what Scott," Rage blinked in surprise at the non-hostility behind that name, "was able to tell me, I assume she somehow made you think I was on board with…"

He trailed off, both hands protectively curled around their unborn child, and Rage realized he couldn't even say the words. She nodded to show him she understood what he was trying to imply, and to let him know he assumed correctly.

"The truth is whatever happened Dr. Summers used her power to put in your head; until today I hadn't seen you since we were still in the breeders' hands," Logan continued. "I would never hurt you or our son that way, never. But I can understand you being forced to believe I would under the circumstances. After you left medical, she ran a few more tests on my condition before trying to remove the collar. I woke up before she could." He shared a feral grin with Rage, telling her, "I pushed her away from me so suddenly and forcefully that I gave her a concussion. When I actually fully realized what she'd been trying to do… well, if I'd been able to pop my claws, Scott would be a widower."

"If she says anything to me, he still may be," Rage told him.

Logan shrugged one shoulder, "I'd feel bad for Scott, but I wouldn't blame you one little bit, darlin'. Anyway, when I was told you had left, I wanted to go after you, but Scott pointed out that a pregnant man would be a little too unusual to be seen in public, and Xavier couldn't ever find you. If you hadn't come back, I was going to start looking for you once the baby was old enough to travel safely."

"Scott?" Rage echoed when Logan paused, unable to hold back her curiosity in that particular shift any longer.

"He never agreed with what his wife and Xavier tried to do, even stood up for me when they said to fall in line or leave," Logan told her. "He found another doctor to come help me until the baby's born since I don't let Dr. Summers within ten feet of our son."

"I'm glad," she responded softly. "I'm glad you had a friend while I wasn't here with you."

Logan hesitated a moment before patting a spot on the bed right beside him. Rage smiled and accepted the invitation, curling against his side with a happy sigh.

"We're still… us, right?" Logan asked quietly.

"Forever," she responded lightly, knowing she would have asked if he hadn't. "If it's what you want."

"Never wanted anything else, darlin'." Logan reached inside his shirt to pull the ball chain that held his dog tag over his head, reverently placing it over hers. "I think this needs to be back where it belongs."

He lifted her hair out from under the chain and tucked the tag inside her shirt, wrapping an arm around her when he was done. A knock on the bedroom door interrupted them before he could kiss her, and he growled.

Rage called out, "Come in," saying simply, "Scott," when Logan gave her a surprised look. He wasn't able to use his sense of smell the way he could have before, but she had enough senses now to more than make up for it.

Sure enough, Scott stepped just inside the doorway, his ruby shades in place of the visor he'd been wearing out on the lawn. He smiled at seeing them sitting on the bed together, one of Logan's arms around Rage and Rage's hand resting lightly on Logan's stomach. The little family was back together, even after all the tragedies and deceptions they'd had to face and the time they'd spent apart.

"Everything okay?" he asked.

Rage smiled at him, "Yes, Scott, thank you."

"If either of you need anything, let me know. Logan has a comm device that only contacts me and Hank."

"Thank you," Rage said genuinely, and Scott nodded before leaving the room, closing the door once more behind him. When Scott was gone, she asked Logan, "Who's Hank?"

"Doc McCoy," Logan answered. "You'll like him. He's not really an obstetrician, but he's some kind of super genius that can learn anything."

"So when our son is delivered and can travel, you won't have any problem with our leaving here?" she asked.

"Not a bit. If it was possible, I'd leave now, but we gotta stay til the little man's born."

Rage nodded and settled more firmly against the pillows behind them. "So, you want to know what I've been up to while we were apart?"

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"You almost ready?" Logan asked impatiently.

Marie shot him a look and finished using the breast pump without answering him. Hank had come up with a hormonal supplement to allow Marie to produce milk for the baby, the only drawback being that she had to start using it before the baby was born so they knew it would work properly. It did, but she had to keep pumping the milk she produced until the baby was there to drink it so she wouldn't dry up.

She put the instrument next to the bathroom sink after rinsing it out, intending to wash it later. Marie put the bottle of breast milk in the small refrigerator. Today was delivery day, and if their son didn't take to breastfeeding, which there was a slight chance of even with a regular pregnancy, having breast milk in a bottle would be better than formula. She really hoped he took to it, though, because pumping hurt, and Hank had assured her that nursing was a natural, comfortable thing once one was used to it. The man, who was actually bright blue, furry and nearly as strong physically as she was, was a veritable font of knowledge, and he'd taken to learning everything about pregnancy and newborns as if he was the one having a child.

Marie looked over at Logan, catching him scowling. For just a moment, anger sparked. In the last several weeks since they had been reunited, she had learned to separate her anger from her everyday personality a bit. Enough that she wasn't Rage when she was with Logan, just his Marie. To almost everyone else in the mansion, however, she was still the stranger that had shown up on their lawn with the Brotherhood. She had a soft spot for Scott because of all he had done for Logan and for the way he treated them since her return, and she was coming to consider Hank a good friend, but she had no qualms about avoiding everyone else completely.

Evidently noticing her distraction, Logan began loudly tapping his foot.

"You know we have an hour before Hank is expecting us, right?" she asked.

Logan grunted. He was sitting in a wheelchair he had been forced to use for moving more than just around the room for the last couple weeks so he didn't strain anything. He was anxious for their son to be out of him and in their arms. Marie was too, of course.

"Alright," she sighed dramatically. "Hank's usually ready ahead of time for everything anyway. Let's go."

Marie rolled Logan down the hallway to the elevator that took them down to Hank's area of the medical facilities. With Hank's help, she easily lifted him onto an operating table without jostling him. Because of what would happen after the baby was delivered and the fact that Logan wanted to be awake for the actual birth, Hank used a local anesthetic for Logan's abdomen. Marie took her place beside Logan, holding his hand in both of hers. The caesarean operation was quick and efficient, and Hank pulled Logan and Marie's son out into the world less than half an hour later. The smiling doctor laid the baby on Logan's chest after clearing his airways.

The tiny boy had let out a healthy wail when Hank had allowed him to breath, but he was quiet now, and Marie shared a teary smile with Logan before cutting the umbilical cord where Hank indicated she should do so. Hank moved away with the baby to clean him and take measurements. Marie leaned down and shared a long, lingering kiss with Logan.

"I love you so much, sugar," she murmured.

Marie disengaged the control collar from around his neck. Logan breathed heavily for a few minutes, each puff of air hissing between clenched teeth as his long dormant healing factor repaired the unusual damage to his body. When it was done, he brushed the dead tissue from his body and moved with Marie to watch Hank performing doctor rituals with their son.

As soon as Hank pronounced them able to do so, the little family moved back to their room, not having to remain in medical since all evidence of a birth was gone except for the baby himself. Logan took a quick shower to remove the last of the cells from his skin and joined Marie on the bed. She was silently watching their son sleep, a pillow on either side of his tiny body even though he was still too young to roll on his own, and Logan couldn't help smiling contently at the image as he sat beside her. A few minutes later, the baby's small eyes blinked open and a cry that was surprisingly big for someone so little erupted from his mouth.

"I guess it's time to try feeding him," Marie remarked nervously.

"Pick him up and scoot forward for a second," Logan instructed.

She followed his instructions carefully, and Logan shifted so that he was sitting behind her. Marie automatically moved backwards to sit against his chest, his legs stretched out on either side of her. Their son was nestled in her arms, already rooting for his mother's breast, making small mewling noises like a kitten. Logan gently placed a pillow under Marie's arm before surrounding his mate and their son with his arms. Marie opened her shirt, and their son latched on and began nursing almost immediately.

"Little man's a natural," Logan commented.

He knew Marie had been worried. He'd had his own moments of doubt about how well he was cut out for this. But now, sitting here, holding his family as Marie fed their son, he somehow knew that they would be able to do this parenting thing just fine as long as they did it together. And he knew it was the way they would do everything from here on out. He couldn't have been any happier than he was in that moment.

Marie twisted her head to look at him, kissing his jaw a bit awkwardly before snuggling back into him.

"I think we need to find a name for our son," she said with a soft smile, her eyes shining with love and happiness.

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Epilogue: Just Shy Of Seventeen Years Later

Mom's at it again. Reminding me of the fact that Old Man, the Inuit who lives about twenty miles from us, will come running if I throw the special log in the fireplace that turns the smoke red. Like the old coot would last two milliseconds with someone who could take me out. Telling me to eat right, stay out of Dad's cigars and make sure Lobo stays off the couch, shit… uh, stuff like that. And she just went through the whole spiel last night. You'd think this was the first time she and Dad ever left me alone while they went on a mission.

I think about telling her I'm not a baby, that I know all this, but that's sure to result in misty eyes and another telling of the miracle of my birth. That and the fact that I will always be their baby. Which, of course, has not been a very well received truth since I was around eight. But I humor Mom and Dad, and yes, the big bad Wolverine can also get pretty mushy when it comes to talking about the child he carried to term. Of course, he doesn't talk about the actual pregnancy that often; not a manly enough subject I suppose. But I am the only child they'll ever have, which is a shame because they've been great parents. Especially when my non-physical mutation finally manifested last year and I had to go to Xavier's to get training for my telekinesis.

For a long time before that, we thought the two bone claws in my left hand and the three in my right, along with my super senses and enhanced strength and reflexes, would be my only abilities.

Not that they're anything to sneeze at, mind you.

Even though neither one of my parents wanted to spend any amount of time there, for reasons they explained to me as gently as possible so I wouldn't hear it from someone else, they moved in to Xavier's for four months while I learned to control my own mind. Mom almost got into a fistfight with Mrs. Summers when the gray-streaked redhead looked at me oddly, but Dad stopped it. He and I are the only ones who can get through to Mom when the rage that she named herself after takes over. But it serves her well when she needs to go kick bad guy ass… uh, booty.

There's been another sighting of Apocalypse, and the X-Men need Mom and Dad to help in the fight… the understatement of the century if you ask me. It's unusual for Mom and Dad to take a job that doesn't pay, and for the X-Men on top of it, but Apocalypse is well-known for endangering the whole planet and not just select mutants or humans like some of the X-Men's other enemies, so they'll go, donning the mantles of Wolverine and Rogue for a short time. Names they've rarely used since I was born.

At home they're Mom and Dad, or Marie and Logan to Old Man and the few other people they consider friends. When they go on their mercenary assignments, they're Rage and Berzerker, the best at what they do. I've been training since I was twelve, and when they think I'm ready, we'll fight as a team of three. Rage, Berzerker and Wrath.

Hey, I had to stay with the family theme, right?

"Lucas, are you listening to me?"

Uh, oh. "Of course, Mom."

Mom fixes me with that look. Dad and I both squirm when she looks at us like that. Like she can look right through us, or into us, on a whim. And of course, with how many powers she has collected over the years, she very easily could. But she doesn't. She doesn't use her abilities on us. Unless you count flying one of us when she either needs to or just feels like it, or when she used to use her TK to push me on the old tire swing out back while she and Dad sat together on the porch. That was years ago, of course.

"Why don't I believe you?" she asks with a sly smile.

"Cuz you know I'm full of shit…"

Oops. You see why I try not to even think that way? The minute I open my mouth, words spill out without my permission.

She smacks the back of my head lightly with her open palm. She has to reach up to do it since I'm only an inch shy of matching Dad's height.

"Lucas Logan James! What have I told you?"

"No swearing until I'm eighteen," I reply dutifully. "Sorry, Mom."

With the way Dad talks, she knows it's pointless to ask that I never swear, but she's tried to keep me as civilized as possible until I'm legal. She considers my apology for a moment before smiling that smile that makes me feel like no one has ever been loved more. Dad and I are the only recipients of that smile.

Speak of the devil.

"All packed up," Dad tells Mom.

She nods in acknowledgment and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek as we exchange ‘I love you's. She leaves our small but comfortable house to let her two boys say goodbye in private. There aren't many we allow to see us when we're being mushy.

"If you need us for anything at all…" he trails off.

"I'll call you and the rest of the world can go to hell," I finish, knowing he won't say anything about my choice of vocabulary. It's Mom's rule, not his.

Dad wraps his arms around me and we share a bear hug that would kill a grizzly as he murmurs, "Love you, boy."

"Love you, too, Dad."

He walks out fairly quickly after that, and I follow as far as the open doorway. I wave when they do, the family motto, ‘best there is at what we do,' ringing in my head. As I watch them drive away, heading for the pick up spot fifty miles away that they chose for the X-Jet… none of the X-Men know exactly where we live and we wanna keep it that way… I almost feel sorry for Apocalypse.

The End.